Harris County is scheduled to go to trial Tuesday over a redistricting map it adopted last year for commissioner precincts that Hispanic activists call an "illegal gerrymander" that dilutes Latino voting power in east-side Precinct 2.

At stake are hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and, perhaps, the safety of Precinct 2 Commissioner Jack Morman's seat.

The plaintiffs, led by Houston City Councilmen James Rodriguez and Ed Gonzalez, and represented by Chad Dunn, general counsel for the Texas Democratic Party, are concerned the county's map could scrap Harris County's only Latino-opportunity commissioner precinct.

Democrat Sylvia Garcia, the court's first Hispanic, represented Precinct 2 for two terms before losing to Morman in the 2010 GOP wave. Though not a party to the suit, Garcia has attended hearings in the case and helped organize opposition to the county's map last year.

The redistricting resulted from the 2010 census, which showed population growth in the county's west and north was outpacing that in the south and east, requiring new lines to make the precincts roughly equal at about 1 million residents each.

The county's map added a bloc of reliably conservative voters in the northeast to Precinct 2, and reduced the precinct's concentration of Hispanic citizens of voting age from 34.9 percent to 33.8 percent, Dunn said. An interim map for use in this fall's elections, drawn as part of the lawsuit by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore last year, put that number at 40.4 percent.

County officials say the need to protect Precinct 1, a black-opportunity district under the Voting Rights Act, made it difficult to add Latinos to Precinct 2 because they share a long border. Dunn said he will show both precincts can be drawn as minority-opportunity districts.

Dunn said taxpayers, essentially, are footing the bill for Morman's campaign, saying only "illegal redistricting" would allow Morman to retain the seat he earned in an "outlier" election.

Willing to spend?

"We're happy with a map very similar to what the judge drew, but it appears Harris County is unwilling to come to a map along those lines," Dunn said. "A majority of Harris County Commissioners Court has determined they're willing to spend large amounts of taxpayer funds in order to drown out the voices of Latino voters."

Morman, who faces re-election in 2014, disagreed. He said the cost - at least $600,000 so far to Andrews Kurth, Assistant County Attorney Doug Ray estimated, with another several hundred thousand dollars more expected for the trial - has not raised concerns among court members.

"We adopted and approved a very fair redistricting plan and I fully expect we'll get a fair trial on that plan," Morman said. "We all are spending what we have to spend to defend our plan. We didn't ask for this fight. It was brought to us."

The U.S. Department of Justice "pre-cleared" Harris County's redistricting map last year, saying it did not violate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Dunn and Ray said that is because the Justice Department agreed Precinct 2 did not have protected status and could be altered. Dunn said he will argue, under Section 2 of the act, that the precinct should be declared a protected district.

Ray said going to trial could result in a rougher road to re-election for Morman than under the interim map the plaintiffs say they would accept.

"The map drawn by the judge, should the plaintiffs prevail, could be a lot more favorable for a Hispanic being elected in Precinct 2 than it is at present," Ray said. "The real risky gamble of going forward is for Precinct 2."

Morman said it is too early to speculate on the results of the trial, but frowned on the idea of settling on the plaintiffs' terms.

"They don't get to draw our plan for us," he said. "That's our job, and I think we did a good job in doing it."